I wish I hadn't told him that.

I'd been dreaming about school every night, and everything was going wonderfully. The screaming teacher held her tongue. Hot food miraculously appeared in the cafeteria, with proper utensils available to all. The restroom didn't drift into the horizon, and once I was in there, the toilets seemed to be in working order. Homework was passed up; tests were aced; grades were made.

Yet.

And there's always a yet, because I can't have a normal dream for once. I can't have a happy-go-lucky, sun-shiney, butterflies and rainbows dream. No sir, not me. Something's always got to be twisted as fuck and somebody is always ripped away or chased away or devoured completely. Elevators open to flaming pits of fire and lava. Blood flows down window panes. Missiles whistle as they fly overhead.

A couple of days ago, I had lunch with ole Green Eyes. It was one of those rare days when nobody else was around to shift the conversation. Somehow we drifted into a more macabre topic-- the exes. Ole Green Eyes has custody of his two boys. His ex has been described to me as "a little on the trashy side," though it wasn't him who told me that. My ex has issues as well. We all have our stories.

I didn't intend to go into that topic. I didn't mean to reveal so much about my past or the things I'd been through, but I sat there with that glued on smile I usually reserve for irritating customers, and I told ole Green Eyes some things I have only ever revealed to my therapy group way back when I needed therapy. He said he'd never heard such things. I could tell he didn't want to believe me, but I have no reason to lie.

Later I went home and sat under the shower, crying until all the hot water was used up, and maybe a little bit longer.

When I slept that night, I dreamed about school. I'm getting all A's, you know. I settle for nothing less than a four point oh, not because it's easy, but because I want it so badly. The teachers were all smiles. My papers were covered with check pluses and happy faces. My classmates were all patting me on the back for all my hard work. I was content with my lot in life.

Until I tried to leave. I had forgotten I wasn't allowed to go outside. Dirty diapers were piling up in the corners of stairwells. The choking stench of neglect pushed us back into the hallway.I would have thrown the nasty things in the trashcan, but a trash can was a luxury we just couldn't afford. I tried to scoop them into my backpack, so the others wouldn't have to see them or smell them, but my backpack was already overflowing with the limp bodies of dead kittens.

He told me it was my fault. I shouldn't have ever fed that stray. I should have known she was pregnant. I should have known what would come of it. She had four little ones, just like me. They were delightful little balls of soft, clumsy fluff.

I guess it was my fault about the dog, too.

This Ain't Alaska

His first mistake was thinking I'd go down without a fight.

He shoved me into the walk-in freezer and bolted the door. I didn't know how long it would take for the human body to freeze to death, and I sure as hell wasn't going to put it to the test. I formulated a plan for survival right away. I needed to knock those fans off the ceiling. The problem was I didn't have a crowbar handy.

When we were kids in Alaska, we called them snot-sicles. I could feel them forming on my face as I desperately searched through the cardboard boxes for anything that would help me. I opened them one by one and tossed them aside as I rejected them. I knew I was running out of time. I needed to stop crying, or my face was going to freeze like that, literally.

His second mistake was thinking the dismembered body of another of his victims would deter me from my goal.

I'm sorry, dead girl. I'm sorry this happened to you. I'm sorry you're dead. I'm sorry I had to use your frozen arm as a bat to disable those fans. I'm sorry you had to watch it all with your frozen dead eyes, staring at me in disbelief.

With magnificent strength, I swung, and the metal box that encased the freezer fans came crashing to the floor. The chamber echoed eerie silence.

His third mistake was coming back for me.

Anticipation

"Will you write about this?" he asked. He slipped his hand into mine and guided me down the paved road into the darkness. The heat of his skin against mine spread into me like a fever. It didn't matter that I couldn't see where we were going. It only mattered that we were going together. I was helpless to resist him. He turned to face me, waiting for the answer, but I had already forgotten the question. I was lost in those deep, black eyes, wondering, what does he see?

He smiled that cocky little smile of his. You know the way he is, so full of cool confidence. He dipped his head toward mine. Our cheeks barely brushed as he turned his lips against my face, but there were no kisses. There was only the promise of kisses yet to come.

How could I write this? What words could I conjure that would do justice to this kind of intimacy? Would I be able to tell about the fast beat of my heart, the sudden hitch in my breath, the anticipation of his touch? How would I put it together without falling apart?

No, I won't write it, I decided. I'd like to keep this one between the two of us. Some things aren't meant to be shared.

Homage

We were out of time and out of place. Most of the world lived in poverty, struggling to find enough food for the next meal. People were dirty and corrupt. We were all hungry or cold or angry at the way things were. Bad attitudes only made things worse.

There was no real love.

My parents sought favor with the queen. The queen was known to grant favors to those who were willing to make the right kinds of sacrifices.

I was amazed they were able to find the things she wanted. She had called for a specific kind of stew, and my parents were able to provide the main ingredient-- human hands.

Where did they get those? I wondered as I stared at the ceremonious way they had placed them on an ornate tray for presentation. I reached out to touch them, bewildered by the horror of it.

I reached out with bloody stumps.

Clown Car

The baby couldn't have been mine. I didn't have the necessary equipment to produce another life, so I'd taken a kitchen knife and cut the child out of me. I told myself  some malcontent had put it inside of me as a cruel joke. Maybe they had done it as I slept. It seemed to be the only explanation. Even if I'd had a uterus, there was still the small issue of not having a sperm donor handy.

Ha ha. Time to push out another kid, Nessa. You'll never escape this fate. Sooo funny.

The baby went into the arms of another; I'm not quite sure who, but definitely somebody who would want such a thing. Since it wasn't mine, I should have felt relieved. The child would thrive elsewhere, under the care of a soul who could provide for her. I couldn't even muster up the smallest sliver of want.  Guilt, yes, but not desire, not want.

The haphazard stitching had begun to unravel, and my wound had begun to fester. I pressed my hand against the tender, reddened skin where I had tried to hide the signs of pregnancy from the world. The scar split open, and the baby's fist pushed through the gap from the inside. I took her tiny hand in mine, pulled her out of the wound with slick, red blood flowing freely down my body.

Where did she come from?

As soon as I swaddled her and set her to the side, the next one came shoving herself out of me. And then the next, and the next, and the next...

Disappointment

We'd been searching through the piles of corn for a while, the older lady and I. The children who'd gathered in the warehouse with us were complaining of hunger. The corn, of course, had begun to rot long ago, but we held out hope for a few good cobs to make some kind of meal for the little ones. Their cries were nearly unbearable. They were drowned out only by the whistling missiles that flew overhead. Our eyes were drawn upward to the windows with every bright explosion.

To keep the children busy, we tasked them with husking the cobs. They worked diligently, but I shooed them away when the older lady began to smack them for eating the rotted pieces. I know she was only trying to keep them healthy, but she was so damned cruel about it. She didn't have to call them names. They were just hungry. They didn't know any better.

I turned back to her just in time to see the tiny black spiders explode from just beneath her corn's husk. She crumpled her face and dropped it back into the pile. I reached for it, thinking I could seal it up somehow to prevent the spiders from biting us. Who knew of they were poisonous or not? When my fingers touched the silky strands just under the yellowed husks, the entire cob disintegrated. Thousands of tiny black spiders jumped toward me, opening their hungry mouths before landing on my face and my chest.

I jumped backward, into wakefulness and began to wipe the frightening things away. A few seconds went by before I understood that it had only been a dream, but that didn't keep me from turning toward my lover to smack the spiders away from him.

A few moments went by before I realized that he had only been a dream too.

You hate me

The right arm was mangled again. Mine, that is. Some kind of tendon or muscle or arm gut tethered the forearm to the elbow. Most of the fingers had been ripped away, and the remainder was a bloody, stumpy mess that was barely recognizable as my arm. Still, I wanted to keep it, so I held onto it with the left hand while I tried to run to safety. I heard the whoosh of bricks and wood as they flew past my head. I might have been breathing  in fire, or perhaps it was the heavy plumes of smoke that burned my lungs.

Dark clouds rolled into my periphery. It took a moment for me to realize I was suffering some sort of weird tunnel vision. I could only see a small circle of asphalt under my feet. I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other without tripping over gremlins. When I finally did fall, it was you who caught me.

I rolled away from you, cradling the damaged arm against my stomach. It had been you who had broken it in the other dream. Had you returned to wrench it away completely?

You dragged me across the lot, ignoring the rocks and twigs and other detritus that were pressing into my tender skin. I didn't want to see you. I couldn't stand to think of the rage you were feeling. I didn't want to see the anguish in your eyes.

You lifted me up. For a moment, just a small moment, I thought you would embrace me, and I was happy, relieved, even. But that was just a brief moment. The bestial cry that came from somewhere deep inside you (or maybe it was from me. Thinking back, I can't be sure) frightened me back to reality. I couldn't look you in the eyes.

I went blind just before you tossed me over the edge.